The Dark Queen
by The Rains of Castamere
Summary: Darth Vader has defeated Obi-Wan on Mustafar. But will he return to Padmé in time to save her life? And what will happen to The Dark Lord and his Lady Wife when they must return to Coruscant and face the Emperor?
1. Chapter 1

The supports were cut and Kenobi, battered from the duel, could not react in time. Large segments of the roofing fell down, shattering against the walkway and its remaining supports. The platform beneath their feet shook, but Vader was prepared for it. He leaned back and grasped the wire while Kenobi tumbled. Durasteel twisted with a screeching whine before falling away at an angle that caused the Jedi to spill from it, falling in a tumble to the slanting rock cliffs about twenty meters below. Vader could tell from the way Kenobi fell that he'd broken several bones upon landing. His former Jedi Master struggled against the incline but stumbled as rock outcroppings broke and fragmented and sent him slipping further down the cliff face, perilously close to the river of lava.

He turned from the scene and, after searching for a way to seal off his advantage, used his lightsaber to cut away the last support holding up another two tone segment of suspended walkway. He reached out with the Force and launched it at Kenobi. The Jedi master saw it and managed to dodge it, but the segment hit the lava bank and sent a huge splash of molten rock, a fiery spray coated Kenobi and set him on fire.

Darth Vader watched the immolation with dampened enthusiasm. He had no time to celebrate this victory, however sweet it may have been. Even Kenobi's screams of pain and anguish couldn't get a rise from him. It was done. The obstacle was removed from his path and now he had to turn to the siren he felt blaring through the Force. That was all.

_Padmé!_

Vader turned and ran back up the walkway, back across the bridge of the mining station, through the control room where he'd slaughtered the separatist leaders and back to the landing platform where Padmé lay. He stopped when he came upon the scene, taken aback by just how horrible it looked. Had he really done this? His shoulders slackened and the anger that had filled him with such terrible power began to subside.

Force. Force, he had.

But he did it for a reason, didn't he? She'd brought Obi-Wan here. And Obi-Wan had tried to kill him.

Or did she? No, no, she didn't. Why would she? Obi-Wan could've stowed aboard the ship, used some Force technique to hide his presence from her. If he had found out about them, then he could have anticipated where she was going. Yes, yes, that made more sense, now that he was thinking of it. That had to be the truth.

Then why did he do _this_? He remembered just seeing Obi-Wan walk out from the ship and reacting. Jumping to a conclusion. It made no sense now, so how could it have made sense then? Padmé wouldn't betray him like that. How could he believe that? Even think it? Padmé _loved_ him! Her words and her actions were clear and unequivocal. She came here to check up on him, to make sure that he was alright, for Force's sake!

Obi-Wan just used her. Manipulated her, then deceived her, as he and his fellow Jedi had deceived so many others. The kriffing bastard. Vader wished he could kill him again.

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly while withdrawing from the Force. The adrenalin began to subside and his body started to feel the exhaustion of the tremendous fight he'd just had with Kenobi. He'd jumped to a conclusion and made a mistake. He wiped three finger's worth of sweat from his forehead. His anger made him mighty but it could steer him so wrong at times.

He wanted to kneel at Padmé's side and make this right. He wanted to brush away strands of hair from her face and kiss her on the forehead. Once she was awake, he would tell her how sorry he was, how mistaken he was and that he would never do that again. It would be alright. She would never be in danger again. Obi-Wan, the last person that could ever hurt them-that could ever hurt their baby, take their baby away-was burning to death less than a kilometer away. The Jedi Order had been swept away. Peace had been restored to the galaxy. And he'd done it for her-he'd done it all for her.

Then he caressed her cheek and recoiled at how cold it felt. His eyes went wide and the adrenalin started to spike through his system again. He put a finger under her nose. She wasn't breathing. He rolled her on her back and put two fingers on the side of her neck. There was no pulse.

His reaction was so stark that it could have been a real, physical response, perhaps to a toxin in his gut. That's what it felt like. It was every fear, every nervous thought, every anxiety he'd ever had, congealed into a knot that folded his stomach on itself. His heart jumped into his throat and he was suddenly aware of just how rapidly it was beating.

Then the first aid training kicked in. She had to breathe. Her heart had to beat. She _had_ to! She couldn't be too far gone, she couldn't! He pressed his mouth to hers and gave her two breaths before setting his hands over her chest.

_Oh Force, Padmé, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!_

He did the compressions. It took a considerable mental effort to keep his his shoulders square and his shaking arms steady.

_I didn't mean it! I was stupid, so, so stupid! Come back to me!_

He gave her two more breaths, then did another thirty compressions. There was no response. No improvement. No flicker in the Force to inform him of his progress. In fact, there was no feeling from the Force at all, just a silence, a stillness that covered him with goosebumps. Never mind the fire and the lava; he could have been on Hoth that moment and not known the difference.

He started shaking his head after he finished the third set of compressions and was aware of the tears dripping down his face. Some of them fell upon his arms. A few dripped on her face.

"Padmé, Padmé, please!" He groaned to her, pressing his forehead against hers while he begged, even though he knew, deep down within that he didn't have a right to. This was his wife. The woman he had loved since he first laid eyes upon her, thirteen years ago. The mother of his children.

Oh kriff. The children. Were they alright? How could they be? _How?_ They weren't even born yet and their mother was dead. How could they survive? They would suffocate, just like he'd suffocated her. The true consequences of what he'd done-which had seemed so distant and so trivial before he realized that she had died-dawned upon him. He Force Choked her, all upon a jump to conclusions. He _Force Choked_ her.

"Come back to me, Padmé," he sobbed. "_Please_!"

He was holding her in his arms now, bent over and sobbing into her shoulder. He'd done it. He'd killed her. It was his fault and he couldn't-he _couldn't_ take it back. Worse, the only person he could blame-the only person that had any reason to cause him to jump to that conclusion and strangle her-was already dead. Obi-Wan was burned to death. And no amount of punishment Vader further inflicted upon that wretch could change this horrible, numbing outcome.

"Lord Vader."

He looked up from his dead wife. If it was any other time, if he was in any other state of mind, he would have went for his lightsaber. He didn't know who this person was but he didn't sense them through the Force which told him immediately that they could be a threat to his person, perhaps even to his life. But he didn't as though his life was particularly valuable at that moment. If, somehow, Kenobi had survived, he wasn't even sure if he would try to defend himself from his wrath.

He would take whatever he deserved.

But the person that stood before him was someone he'd never seen before. A thin, lanky Muun, shrouded in a garb similar to the black robes Palpatine had donned after throwing Mace Windu from the window with Force Lightning. The hood he wore hid the entirety of his face, with the exception of a narrow mouth that seemed to be permanently set in slight downward frown.

"Who are you?" Vader asked as he felt ripples in the Force. The figure walked towards and seemed almost seemed incorporeal. The pigments of his robe shimmered with the slightest hint of red.

"I am Darth Plagueis."

Vader's eyes turned to saucers. "...you...you save people from dying, don't you?"

"I've returned to aid you, young one." The Dark Lord knelt at his side and placed a faintly glowing hand upon Padmé's swollen womb. "The children must be taken care of. There isn't much time. Your legacy-_our_ legacy is in peril."

Vader didn't hear a single thing that Plagueis had said. "You have to bring her back."

Plagueis turned to him. "Lord Vader, you are the chosen one. Your children are the future of our kind, the dark ones-"

"Save her! I beg you, My Lord Plagueis, _please_! You have to save Padmé!"

"Your children can be retrieved now." He sounded annoyed. "But what you ask for is different. It is no small task. There could be difficulties. There could be complications."

Vader shook his head. "I don't care!"

"There are costs."

"I'll pay them." His face was turning red. "I'll do anything!"

"The Force exists upon a balance, one that even you and I cannot completely negate." Plagueis straightened to an imposing height. For the first time, Vader seemed to realize just how he was dealing with. This was Palpatine's master, who had likely been Dark Lord of the Sith for longer than Vader had ever lived. "The price of life is life. Do you understand?"

"Do whatever you have to," Vader said. "Just bring her back, _please_."

The Muun looked at him balefully and Vader saw a glimmer of the Sith Lord's ochre eyes beneath that hooded cloak. "As you wish, young one."

Plagueis laid his hand on Padme's forehead and Vader felt the Force flow considerably. There was a struggle, a flurry of moments, tiny kicks and punches and squirms that twisted and tensed and slowly began to weaken. Vader saw ripples moving in Padmé's clothing, around the area of her womb. The children were struggling, responding to the undulating flow of the Force and the tremendous darkness that overwhelmed it.

The lifetime of Jedi training he had to fall back upon told him to panic. The darkness was bad and now it surrounded his children, seemed to swallow them whole, as it fixed upon his wife's body. But he dismissed those fears, allayed those doubts, by telling himself that this was necessary. He was a Sith now and darkness was his way. It was the way he would protect his children and his wife. It was the way he would get them back.

Padmé gasped, then jerked up, eyes wide and face contorted with what he could only describe as utter panic.

"Padmé?"

"Anakin!" She reached for his hand, and squeezed it with a desperation that sent static up his spine. She looked upon him with eyes that weren't quite hers. Instead of the soft brown that had smiled upon him and laughed with him and longed for him, he saw a sulfurous yellow that made him balk, almost draw back. And he felt something move within her, a power so great that it could be akin to the Force itself re-aligning itself.

"It is done," Plagueis said. Vader and Padmé looked up at him, then looked everywhere trying to find him. He had disappeared into thin air.

"Who...who was that, Anakin?" Padmé asked as leaned into the crook of his shoulder.

He blinked several times. "It was..." His voice trailed off and he just held her and stroked her hair gently. "I think that was my true master."

She looked at him, expecting more answers but he just kissed her.

"I love you, Padmé," he whispered. "I love you so much, and I'm so, so sorry. I'll never...I swear, I'll never hurt you again."

She tilted her head, confused. Her eyes had returned to their normal color. "Hurt me?"

"I..." Did she truly not remember? "I failed you. I lost control. Allowed you to be hurt. Obi-Wan-"

Padmé frowned. "Yes, Obi-Wan. He stowed aboard my ship. He was looking for you. What happened?"

"I fought him. I killed him."

He expected shock, or horror or disbelief. Instead, he felt nothing from her. She was a void that unnerved him to the point that he had to wonder exactly what Plagueis had meant earlier by...costs. "That's terrible, Anakin," she said, finally. Then he felt the sadness in her. "You couldn't have had a choice."

He looked at the bulge of her stomach. "I didn't."

"Can we leave here, then?" Padmé asked as she put a hand on her belly. "They'll be born soon. I don't want them to be born here. Can we go home to Naboo?"

Vader tried his best to force a smile. "Of course."


	2. Chapter 2

"Did you...did you really kill younglings?" Padmé had asked him, broaching the subject they were discussing before Obi-Wan's interruption.

He leaned back in the co-pilot's seat and gazed up at the stars that turned to white lines as they jumped to hyperspace. She'd never seen him so exhausted before.

"Anakin?" She asked. "I won't be angry. I just want to know."

Anakin nodded. "I took my men with me. There were three hundred and twenty seven of them."

She winced. "You counted?"

He shrugged. "You wouldn't?"

It should have shocked her, horrified her beyond all belief and confirmed to her all the ludicrous things that Obi-Wan had told her...but it didn't. She knew that it was disgusting. She knew that what he'd done was unforgivable. But she didn't feel it.

She didn't feel anything. No rising feeling of nausea in her gut, no twist of shame, no judgment or condemnation. No feeling at all. How could she not at least be embarrassed for him? Of herself for staying with him? Why all these things that she knew to be terrible couldn't get her to feel terrible?

Then there was that Muun in the dark cloak. The image of him sitting over her as she woke was practically burned into the back of eye sockets. Anakin said that he saved her life. Somehow, she wasn't sure. Something had changed inside, and it was something so radical and so fundamental that she wasn't even sure how to describe it.

"Why did you do it?" She asked.

Anakin pursed his lips. "They were traitors. They had to die."

Padmé looked up at him and asked, without the slightest bit of sarcasm or insincerity in her voice, "Is that what you really believe?"

"I had to find out if he was telling the truth." There was no shame or guilt in his voice, just a candidness that made the admission more disturbing. "If the Dark Side was stronger."

"And?"

He nodded while staring off into the distance, eyes wide as saucers. "Palpatine has made a terrible mistake."

"Oh?" Padmé frowned. There were a hundred things Palpatine had done that she abhored, but she couldn't see how he had made any mistakes, at least in relation to pursuing his own goals. After all, he'd just declared himself Emperor and crushed all his opposition in the process.

"He thought that he could show me this power and then control me." Anakin made a fist, the muscles in his forearms rippling with barely controlled anger. "He won't be stronger than me for long. I will destroy him."

Stray thoughts told her to back away, to recoil, for this was the same instability she'd seen on Mustafar. In his eyes was the twinge of madness that overtook him just before he saw Obi-Wan emerge from his little hiding place aboard the star skiff. That was the face he made before he started choking her. He had turned to the Dark Side and it was obvious, so apparent, so complete that now even she felt it.

But that safety that had been in the back of her mind then was gone now. She didn't want to turn away, or run, or hide. She wasn't afraid, and she wasn't caught up in some phase of denial. The good and kind and noble man that she had met years ago and come to cherish and love was gone. This wasn't her husband. She knew that.

And she didn't care, because this creature that wore her husband's face excited her. She wasn't repulsed by his darkness. She wasn't frightened by it. She was drawn to it. She wanted to embrace him. She wanted to put her hands on him, to tell him that she would never leave him, that she didn't judge him for all these terrible things he did. He did them for a reason. She understood, she would tell him. Everything has a cost, everything has a price, and he had paid the steepest kind. She loved him for that.

If there was anything that should have frightened her, it was the fact that she had done all these things without even pausing to process what she was saying, what she was thinking, what she was feeling. It was automatic, like instinct.

As she said these things, he looked upon her with such wide-eyed astonishment that he might have been truly seeing her for the first time. He kissed her and told her that everything was going to work out.

.

It was near sunset when Padmé Amidala and Anakin Skywalker arrived on Naboo. They were permitted to dock their J-type star skiff in the same large hangar where they had fired the first shots in an attempt to take back Theed, thirteen years back. The wall of the right side of the hangar was covered with a large stone relief commemorating the battle where Naboo's freedom was won. The carving of Padmé Amidala stood behind Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, small royal blaster pistol leveled at the opposition of droids. The declination of the sun left the entire mural cloaked in shadow.

Queen Apailana, Governor Sio Bibble and a troupe of handmaidens were waiting for them.

"Senator Amidala," Apailana said, dipping her head slightly as Padmé walked down the boarding ramp. "And Master Skywalker! The gods are good that you are still live! We've feared the worst for your safety, and for Master Kenobi's since this...terrible announcement came down from the Chancellor."

"Master Kenobi has been killed," Anakin said without a change in expression.

Sio Bibble's expression turned acrid and Apailana saddened. "This is a tragedy," the Queen said. "Master Kenobi was a hero to our people. He helped save us from the oppression of the Trade Federation."

"He was a good man and a great friend," Padmé said sorrowfully. _Yes, but what would you know about the 'oppression' of the Trade Federation?_ Padmé mused. _You're barely thirteen. You hadn't even been born yet when that happened._

She bowed to her successor, though more out of respect for the office that had once been hers than for any personal respect for Apailana herself. Anakin followed suit.

"How are our people taking the changes in Coruscant?" Padmé asked as they started to walk out of the hangar and towards the main palace complex.

"A great unease has fallen upon our people, Senator," Sio Bibble said, while shaking his head. "Many of them are shocked by the events on Coruscant and news of this...Order 66."

"Are Jedi really being exterminated?" Apailana asked.

"The Jedi Temple was sacked," Anakin said. "Even apprentices and younglings weren't spared."

"Oh, god," Apailana covered her mouth, tears welling from her eyes. Like so many born during the baby boom after the Trade Federation Invasion, she looked upon the Jedi as her personal heroes. Padmé had seen enough of the Clone Wars to know that they were heroes. Her sadness could have-should have-been contagious, but Padmé just looked upon it in with mute interest.

"Master Skywalker," Sio Bibble said, "you were able to escape?"

Anakin looked to Padmé, then back to the Governor, seeming to get the gist of what she wanted from him, as he began spinning a tale rather than tell the horrible truth. "Yes," he said, "I got away as they set the temple ablaze. Senator Amidala helped me escape from the planet afterwards."

"Were there others?" Apailana asked.

Anakin frowned. "I was...alone."

"Could there have been other survivors?"

Anakin's frown deepened, then he gave a nod that could've been interpreted as either numb or callous. "Yes, there could have been, I suppose."

"This is an atrocity!" Sio Bibble declared. "I refuse to believe that the Jedi were a part of any plot to take over the Republic. Even if a few isolated individuals were to be involved, that sort of retaliation by the Chancellor is completely uncalled for."

"He calls himself Emperor, now," Apailana said.

Sio Bibble shook his head, the look of extreme distaste on his face. "Another reason why our people are uneasy and unhappy. They cannot believe that Palpatine, who had served us faithfully for so long, would take power this way!" Bibble's voice rose violently, laced with an anger that only a hard-nosed partisan like him could muster, "This whole declaration of a new order is a sham, it's the destruction of our democracy!"

Yes, yes it was. It was all that, the destruction of everything Padmé had ever believed, everything she had previously raised her hand to fight for. Yet she could no longer muster the same anger, the same righteous indignation that still burned so fiercely, even in the heart of a man so old as Bibble. Where had her emotion gone? Did she even believe anymore?

"Everyone in Theed has seen the video footage from the Senate by now, including Emperor Palpatine's speech inducing a New Order," Apailana said, "many still can't believe it. I can't believe it. Is that really how it happened, Padmé? Did all those Senators really cheer?"

Padmé looked at Anakin. She knew that her husband preferred order. Dissent like this left a terrible taste in his mouth and could provoke him to some pretty sour moods. His mood now had yet to reach a tipping point, though. He was just between bored and annoyed with this little masquerade.

"It happened exactly as it appeared on the holonet," Padmé said.

To her credit, Apailana didn't despair. Her features only hardened with a defiance that Padmé knew to be all too familiar. "Then someone is going to have to rise up and stop him." She turned to Anakin. "Master Skywalker, I know you've always stood tall against evil, and I know that you won't allow this atrocity to continue. I just want you to know that I stand with you. Naboo stands with you, and all the Jedi. We can bring this murderer to justice."

Padmé sensed the darkness upwelling in him again, and she could've slapped the queenling for being so presumptuous. Anakin's expression turned icy when he considered the young queen for a beat. "I assure you, Your Highness, Palpatine will not reign for long."

Apailana considered for a second, then beckoned for them to follow her after she dismissed Governor Bibble and about half of her handmaidens.

.

They went deep into the bowels of the Theed palace, beyond several sets of trap doors that even Padmé wasn't familiar with, and into a basement domicile she'd never seen before. The living area consisted of close to a dozen rooms linked to a large, open common area with vaulted ceilings held up by tall stone pillars. Apailana led them into the first room, where a horrendously injured man lay, tended to medical droids.

"Senator Amidala," Apailana said, "I'm not sure if you've met Master Garen Muln before, but he is a contemporary of Obi-Wan Kenobi and a good friend."

"What happened to him?" Padmé asked before Anakin could say anything. She felt his anger and knew that stalling was the best way to control it for the time being.

"We don't know. We found him like this aboard a derelict LAAT gunship floating in a wreckage on our third moon, Rori. I don't know how he could have survived up there."

"Jedi can be very resilient," Anakin said.

"Yes, yes they can," Apailana said, "but our droids haven't been able to stabilize him and we're not sure how much longer he can survive. I know that the Jedi have special healing techniques...I was wondering if you could do something to help him, Master Anakin..."

Padmé gave Anakin a cold glare, a tried her best to mentally insist that he control himself and act appropriately. He assented with a burdened nod then asked them to clear the room. Once they were outside in the lobby, Padmé grabbed Apailana by the arm and pulled her aside.

"You do realize the tremendous risk you're taking, right?" Padmé asked.

Apailana yanked her arm away and looked up at Padmé with a mixture of shock and incredulity. A couple of the handmaidens had almost stepped up and intervened. No one-not even someone as respected as Amidala-could be allowed to handle the Queen in such a manner. The way Apailana caressed her arm went to show just how roughly Padmé had handled her.

"We have to fight Palpatine. We have to stand up for what's right!"

"Palpatine is more powerful than you realize. Have you thought of what would happen if you gave him cause to come after you?"

Apailana straightened. "I'm not afraid of him or his empire-"

"For yourself, maybe. But what about your people? _Our_ people? What do you think will happen when he removes you from the throne? Another elected monarch, that respects liberty and the constitution? No, he'll replace you with someone that would make the Trade Federation occupation look like a circus!"

"The Jedi saved us." Apailana's expression hardened and Padmé wondered if she was so obstinate when she was a teenager, reigning as queen. "Of all people, you should know that best! We owe it to them, to protect them as they protected us."

Padmé bristled beneath a mask of reservation. It would seem that each monarch reigning in her wake seemed to be less competent than the last, cumulating in this..._child_. Padmé could've retained the throne years ago when her second term ended. The Naboo and Gungan alike would have supported an amendment to the constitution and allow her to rule in perpetuity. She should have allowed them to. Her popularity was such that she still could...

"You have to think about our people, Apailana," Padmé said icily. "Are you really willing to leverage their suffering that way? I know that you're too young to have a family, but if you did, would they appreciate you gambling with their lives like this?"

"This isn't any more of a risk than what you did!" The young queen was getting angry now. "You took in Master Skywalker and smuggled him off Coruscant, remember?"

"That's different."

"How?"

Her jaw clamped she was starting to get angry herself. "He _is_ my family."

Apailana frowned and traded a look with one of her handmaidens before turning back to Padmé. Her eyes invariably fell upon Padmé's bulging stomach, then widened with realization. "He's..." Even after a beat, Padmé still felt the sense of shock and confusion spilling from Apailana. "He's the father?"

Padmé's annoyance only increased, as she was reminded of the lower back pain that carrying the babies had afflicted her with. "Are you planning to hide more Jedi here?"

The queenling nodded. "Any Jedi would be welcome here."

"Okay," Padmé said after a beat. "But you need to keep me informed. Palpatine still trusts me and I can use that trust to protect you-maybe get special immunities and protections for Naboo and keep them from putting an Imperial garrison here or assigning an Imperial governor...but I need to know exactly what's going on down here. Do you understand?"

The queenling nodded. "Of course, Senator."

Padmé let out a breath of relief then turned as Anakin walked out of the room, his face sullen.

"Master Muln has joined the Force," he said.

Apailana looked down. "I'm sorry, we did everything we could to keep him stable before you arrived."

"You did nothing wrong. I...just arrived late." Anakin shook his head and looked away. He appeared to be so sad and so wounded, but Padmé knew better. "Please, excuse me."

He walked off, then Padmé gave the queen and her handmaidens a tired look before turning to go after him. She followed him up the stairs and back through the passages of secret doors. Once they were outside on a balcony overlooking the Virdugo Plunge, and beyond an earshot of the Queen or any of her handmaidens, Padmé pulled on his arm and gave him an expectant look.

"I was merciful," Anakin said. "I could have made it painful. But Garen was a decent man. He was on the wrong side of things, but still, a decent man. He did not deserve pain."

She could have blanched at the cavalier admission. She didn't.

"We should report this to the Emperor," Anakin said. "The Queen is harboring terrorists."

"No," Padmé said firmly. "We should wait. Apailana plans to hide more Jedi here."

Anakin folded his hands, then flashed a sinister smile. He put his arm around her and she leaned into the crook of his shoulder. They watched the waterfall for a time before walking to the transit blister in the lower palace. Padmé requisitioned an airspeeder from the Royal Security Force and began the trek to the mountains and the isolated village where Padmé's parents and sister had lived in seclusion since the Clone Wars began.


	3. Chapter 3

a/n: I want to thank everyone for continuing to follow this little story despite my inconsistencies and leaves of absence. I'm glad that you're read and enjoying following and reviewing. Please, feel free to leave some lines about what you like or dislike about my story or where you think it's going. I love feedback.

* * *

><p>The Naberrie farmhouse was nestled out in between two mountains, several kilometers northeast up the gulch from the village. It was a simple, three-story house built onto the slope of the west ridge, between two huge willows that grew out on a tilt and shadowed much of the hillside below with their nebulous branches. The rest of the slope beneath the farmhouse was arranged into yellow, red and green terraces, each terrace growing a different arrangement of vegetables.<p>

Darth Vader liked this, even more than he liked Varykino. The anonymity and isolation made up for what ever sentiment his fond memories of Varykino might have invoked. Practicality trumped sentimentality in times like this. Palpatine had called him twice, once on a comm and once through the Force. He wasn't ready to return to Coruscant and face the Emperor yet. He and Padmé needed time to handle and close their affairs here.

Ruwee Naberrie was outside, tending to a patch of vine fruit plants on the first terrace when they landed the airspeeder. He stood when he saw them, and held down his straw hat to keep the repulsors from blowing it off. He smiled up at them and waved.

"Padmé?" He said, "Is that my daughter?"

Padmé waved back and slowly climbed out of the speeder, hand cradling her belly. "Dad!" She shouted down to him.

Vader stood aside as Ruwee practically ran up the incline and hugged her. "Oh, you're safe," Ruwee said. "We've been worried sick since this whole business in Coruscant happened." He let her go for long enough to take note of Vader. "Oh, Master Skywalker! You're alive! I take it that you're responsible for rescuing my daughter again?"

Vader gave a humorless smile as he stuck to the story they'd given Apailana. "Actually, she saved me this time."

"My daughter? Rescuing a Jedi?" Ruwee gave a genial laugh. "And to think, it's not the first time either." The mirth left his face as he looked at Vader again then put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry about your people, Master Skywalker."

Vader tried his best to look sullen about the whole thing. After that little meeting on Theed, he was really starting to tire of everyone's guilt and sad feelings over the unfortunate end of the Jedi Order. He wanted nothing more than to just stand up and take some pride and pleasure in his work. After all, how many others could defeat Cin Drallig and three skilled Knights at once?

"No matter what Palpatine and his media tries to sell, everyone knows that the Jedi are heroes," Ruwee rattled on.

And Vader finally saw an opportunity to speak his mind. "Palpatine will be punished," he said.

"Aunt Padmé!" A girl yelled. Ryoo came running down from the other side of the farmhouse, followed closely by Pooja. Vader couldn't help but smile as the girls took turns hugging his wife. They were such nice, sweet children. Killing them would have been a much more difficult task than wiping out the younglings in the Jedi Temple.

"Master Anakin!" Pooja beamed. She hugged him. Anakin smiled warmly and patted her on the head. Ryoo less enthused. She only acknowledged him with a stiff bow.

"Anakin, we're going to go inside, okay?" Padmé said, walking up to the front door with her father. "I have to talk to my mom."

Vader sighed. She was going to tell her parents everything. That was the plan, the reason for returning to Naboo: She wanted the children to be born in the same farm house she and her sister had been born in. She said that if the children were born as Naboo citizens it would be easier to protect them. She was loved like a queen on Naboo, so their children would always be safe here.

"Master Anakin," Ryoo said, "is it true that you murdered civilians during the Battle of Telredar?"

Vader turned to face his accuser. The girl asking the question was all of nine years old and filled with an outrage that only a holonet report could have planted in her mind. Before Vader could answer-which would be the same he gave to holo news-Pooja lashed out at her older sister.

"Will you ever shut up about that?" Pooja said. "Master Anakin never murdered _anyone_! He's a Jedi. Jedi don't murder."

Ryoo glared at her younger sister. "Oh yeah? Well I saw the report. Ashten showed it to me."

Pooja rolled her eyes. "So, you're going to believe whatever _that_ sleemo shows you?"

"Ashten is _not_ a sleemo." Ryoo looked back up at Vader after shaking her head at her sister. "Ashten's my friend from school."

"He is too a sleemo, and a rotten sepper!"

"He is _not_ a sepper!"

"He's a Koorivar." Pooja wagged a finger at Ryoo. "All Koorivars are seppers!"

Vader smiled grimly. Someone must have given her that impression simply because Passel Argente, the leader of the Corporate Alliance, was a Koorivar. If only all the galaxy could be so simple.

Ryoo's eyes went wide with outrage. "Pooja, you're such a rotten speciesist!"

Vader looked to the younger girl, who was furious, then wondered at what point he should step in and stop the argument. Perhaps it wasn't his place at all. A little sibling rivalry is supposed to be healthy isn't it? Vader never had any siblings. He couldn't know.

"You take that back!" Pooja yelled as she ran for her sister. Before long the girls had grasped each other by the wrists and were engaged in a pushing match. Vader chuckled under his breath as they screamed and struck each other, taking a few steps back from time to time to give them room to barrel into each other. The smirk disappeared from his face when he sensed someone else coming, then he took it upon himself to grab the girls and separate them.

"What is going on out here!" Sola Naberrie, the girls' mother shouted as she walked out of the farmhouse. When she got to them, Vader had separated the two girls and she gave him a nod of appreciation. "Thank you, Master Anakin. These two can be a real handful sometimes."

Vader nodded to the woman.

"Now," Sola began, "what happened? Why are the two of you fighting again?"

"She started it!" Pooja screamed.

"Nuh-uh!" Ryoo shook her head. "_She_ started it! She called my friend Ashten a sleemo then she started pushing me!"

"She called me speciesist."

Sola sighed then turned to Vader. "Master Anakin, you were here. Care to tell me who is at fault?"

He considered the two girls for a moment before looking at their mother. "I'm sorry to say that Ryoo started the fight. The girls were having a disagreement before-"

"_What_?" Ryoo screeched with the indignation of a child that had just been tattled on. "That's not true! I didn't start _anything_! Mom-"

"Ryoo," Sola began, her voice firm and loud enough to be projected over the girls protestations, "I want you to go upstairs to your room."

"But _mom_!" Ryoo protested again, "I didn't start anything I swear. Master Anakin's lying!"

"He _is_ not!" Pooja barked. "You started it by calling Master Anakin a murderer. Jedi _don't_ murder! Jedi are heroes!"

"You said _what_?" Sola's eyes widened at her elder daughter. She turned to her family's guest. "I'm so sorry, Master Anakin. It would seem that my daughter forgets herself sometimes."

"It's alright, Sola." Vader waved her off with as much feigned grace as he could muster. "You know, how kids can be," he began again as Ryoo started walking back to the house, head down, "they just repeat what they see on the holonet sometimes. Do you guys watch a lot of holonet?"

"Yeah, I guess we did," Sola said absently, "We haven't been watching it a lot since Palpatine made that proclamation. And that business at the Jedi Temple...I'm so sorry Master Anakin."

Pooja frowned up at her mother. "Jedi Temple? What happened, at the Jedi Temple, mom?"

Sola bit her lip and looked down at her daughter sadly. Force, the little girl worshipped the Jedi so much that her mother had hidden the truth of their demise from her. "We're...not sure yet, Pooja. There have been a lot of lies on the holonet since Palpatine declared himself Emperor."

"But...but Master Anakin's here now! Maybe he can tell us the truth."

Sola gave Vader a look that equal parts sadness and guilt before looked back at her daughter. "Your Aunt Padmé is here, too, and she's explaining what's been going on in Coruscant. I...I have to go back inside and finish talking to her."

Vader nodded.

"Master Anakin, you're welcome to come in if you'd like. My mother's cooking a delicious meal and we'll be having dinner in thirty minutes."

"I'll...meet you inside, then," Vader said.

Once Sola was gone, Pooja ran to the side of the house and asked Vader to follow. When he followed her into the side yard, where the stood waiting with two thin, straight branches pulled down from the apriplum trees her grandfather maintained. Each branch was as long as his arm and as wide as a finger.

"Want to play lightsabers?" Pooja asked. "Me and Podrick play at school _all_ the time! Whenever we play, he makes believe like he's Obi-Wan and I make believe like I'm you and we fight the evil Trade Federation!"

There was something extremely remarkable about this girl that he couldn't quite place yet, something special. "We can play, as long as we play as ourselves."

The girl looked confused. "But...I'm not a Jedi."

Vader smiled. "You can always make believe."

* * *

><p>Padmé, was standing under at a cutting board, chopping up leaves and vegetables for the salad that was to accompany the baked Shaak flank and whole-germ bread her mother had prepared for dinner. The cutting board was next to a window to the side yard. Anakin and Pooja were chasing after each other with sticks, swinging and slashing playfully. Padmé when Anakin fell down laughing, feigning defeat before Pooja's relentless advances.<p>

Anakin would be a good father. _He was great with children_, she thought. The fact that he had just slaughtered three hundred twenty-seven of them didn't change that. She pushed aside the chopped up onions and started slicing cucumbers.

"Almost done?" Sola asked as she walked into the kitchen.

"Yeah. Where's Darred?"

"Theed. He does all the design and architectural work from home but he has to go to the job site at least once every two weeks to make sure the droids aren't botching anything," Sola said as she started setting the plates. "He's going to be back after dinner though, so don't worry, you won't miss him."

As Padmé finished chopping the last of the vegetables, her mother walked in.

"Padmé!" Jobal Naberrie gushed, arms stretched out, face bright and warm. "There you are, dear!"

Padmé fought the urge to weasel away when her mother practically smothered her with a hug and kissed her on the cheek.

"Oh my, you're really far along now, aren't you?" Jobal said as she patted her daughter on the stomach. "You look like you could be due any day now."

Padmé pushed the bowl of mixed greens and vegetables away and started washing her hands in the faucet basin. "I am, mom. The babies could be here any day now."

"_Babies_?" Sola looked up at her from the set of forks, knives and spoons she was setting by each plate.

"Yes," Padmé answered. "Twins. A boy and a girl."

"Oh," Sola said. "Congratulations."

"He must have been a very potent young man," Jobal said, "to have given you twins..."

Padmé clamped her jaw while Sola and her mother laughed. She looked up from the basin and saw Anakin and Pooja through the window. They were still holding sticks, though it no longer seemed as though they were playing anymore. Anakin was showing Pooja specific maneuvers and strokes that could be made with a stick-or a lightsaber-and Pooja seemed the model student.

"I just don't understand why you won't tell us who the father is," Jobal said.

Padmé turned to her mother, who was leaning against the counter top and looking at her with her arms folded over her chest. She recognized that look from long ago, a look of veiled disappointment that Jobal had given her when she was making a mess of her room as a child. Even though it still made her feel slightly uncomfortable, it seemed as though that look had lost most of its relevance once she was elected Queen, and given a bigger stage with concerns far larger than her mother's feelings. Now that she had a husband, and children to protect...

Padmé's mouth went dry at the thought of her children. Anakin said that he had done all these horrible things in order to ensure her and the children's safety. Yet she felt as though the children would never truly be safe now. There was no doubt in her mind that the children would inherit Anakin's gift. With such sensitivity to the Force, they would always be sought after, so that they might be trained and turned into warriors. They would never be safe.

And given that, how could she ever go about _telling_ anyone about them? Padmé looked at her sister, then at her mother. This was her family, the people who had raised her, nurtured her and turned her into the person she was now. Mom and dad had instilled in her the values she carried to Theed, to Coruscant, to Geonosis and to every other place she had served. This was the house she had been born in. And she still wasn't sure she could trust it. _Any_ of it.

"Padmé, sweetheart." Jobal came closer, then put her hands on Padmé's small shoulders. "I know that you and your father have had quarrels about this in the past-and I know that I have allowed my temper to get the best of me before-but you have that...we were just trying to understand."

Jobal pursed her lips and looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right words to say. Padmé could _feel_ the concern radiating from her mother. If it was pure concern that made someone trustworthy, then she would have told her family the truth about the children and her marriage a long time ago. But concern cuts both ways. The children's lineage and gifts would make them a target. Anyone who knew about them could be in danger.

"Our entire family is pretty well off financially, so even if the father isn't involved you know that the twins will be taken care off," Jobal said. "I still think that the situation is less than ideal, but...that's alright. Your father said some unkind things before, and I know that I've given you my share of lectures about parenting and fathers and the challenges of having these children alone, but that doesn't matter because we understand now. You've made your decision to have these babies alone and we accept it. We're not embarrassed or ashamed or angry with you. We love you, and we're going to love these children, too."

Padmé looked up at her mother and smiled, then looked over her shoulder when Sola patted her on the back. "We're your family, Padmé," Sola said, "We're always going to be here for you."

And that pierced her like an exposed check in a high-stakes game of dejarik. This was her family, so they would be in danger _no matter what_. Her husband was now Palpatine's Sith Apprentice-whatever that means-but she could not take that as a guarantee of safety for her family. After all, Palpatine had just played his hand and shown to her and the Jedi and so many others his true, brutal nature. He was the dictator, and anyone who displeased him-or had displeased him in the past, as she had, with her proposals and petitions-was liable to face retribution.

Padmé looked up at her mother, forced a smile and hugged her. Then she hugged her sister.

"I have to tell you something after dinner," She said.


End file.
